Governing Gaza Is a Work Ilana Feldman Ally
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ANTHroPOLogY/MIDDLE EAST STUDieS Feldman Ilana arred by political tumult and violent conflict since “Through a historical ethnography Mthe early twentieth century, Gaza has been subject of everyday bureaucratic practices to a multiplicity of rulers. Still not part of a sovereign in British- and then Egyptian- state, it would seem too exceptional to be a revealing site ruled Gaza, this path-breaking for a study of government. Ilana Feldman proves other- and lucidly written book offers wise. She demonstrates that a focus on the Gaza Strip un- challenging new perspectives on covers a great deal about how government actually works, what government is and how it not only in that small geographical space but more gener- operates. Governing Gaza is a work Ilana Feldman ally. Gaza’s experience shows how important bureaucracy of remarkable theoretical sophis- is for the survival of government. Feldman analyzes civil tication that makes a unique service in Gaza under the British Mandate (1917–48) and contribution to the anthropology the Egyptian Administration (1948–67). In the process, of government and the state while GOVERNING GAZA she sheds light on how governing authority is produced remaining firmly grounded in the and reproduced; how government persists, even under specificities of this crisis-ridden conditions that seem untenable; and how government af- place and in the experience of its GOVERNING GAZA fects and is affected by the people and places it governs. long-suffering people.”—Zachary Drawing on archival research in Gaza, Cairo, Jerusalem, Lockman, author of Comrades Bureaucracy, Authority, and London, as well as two years of ethnographic research and Enemies: Arab and Jewish with retired civil servants in Gaza, Feldman identifies Workers in Palestine, 1906– and the Work of Rule, two distinct, and in some ways contradictory, governing 1948 practices. She illuminates mechanisms of “reiterative au- 1917–1967 thority” derived from the minutiae of daily bureaucratic “Governing Gaza is a brilliant practice, such as the repetitions of filing procedures, the exploration of the everyday accumulation of documents, and the habits of civil ser- work of rule. In examining how vants. Looking at the provision of services, she highlights people produce authority under the practice of “tactical government,” a deliberately re- exceptional circumstances, Ilana stricted mode of rule that makes limited claims about Feldman offers an original inter- governmental capacity, shifting in response to crisis and pretation of the general condi- operating without long-term planning. This practice made tions of modern bureaucratic it possible for government to proceed without claiming power.”—Timothy Mitchell, legitimacy: by holding the question of legitimacy in abey- author of Rule of Experts: ance. Feldman shows that Gaza’s governments were able Egypt, Techno-Politics, to manage under, though not to control, the difficult Modernity conditions in Gaza by deploying both the regularity of everyday bureaucracy and the exceptionality of tactical practice. Ilana Feldman is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University. DUKE UniverSITY PreSS Box 90660 DUKE COVER ART: Courtesy of Government Press Office, State of Israel, Durham, NC 27708-0660 National Photo Collection www.dukeupress.edu governing gaza ilana feldman governing gaza university press duke and london durham Bureaucracy, Authority, and the Work of Rule, 1917–1967 ∫ 2008 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. in memory of my mother, Marcia Feldman, and my grandmother, Sylvia Smith contents Acknowledgments ix Note on Transliteration xiii 1. Introduction. Government Practice and the Place of Gaza 1 Part One. Producing Bureaucratic Authority 2. Ruling Files 31 3. On Being a Civil Servant 63 4. Civil Service Competence and the Course of a Career 91 Part Two. Tactical Practice and Government Work 5. Service in Crisis 123 6. Servicing Everyday Life 155 7. Community Services and Formations of Civic Life 189 8. Conclusion. Gaza and an Anthropology of Government 219 Notes 237 Bibliography 297 Index 313 acknowledgments My thanks go first to the people I knew in Gaza. This book could not have been written without the many retired civil servants and other Gazans who welcomed me into their o≈ces, homes, and lives—who let me tape record our conversations and shared their memories and insights with me. Though my commitment to honor their privacy means I cannot name them here, I am forever grateful to them. Of those people I knew in Gaza whom I can name, special thanks must go to my research assistants, Emad Karam and Mushir Amer, who with amazing dedication and resourcefulness helped me tran- scribe the tapes of my interviews and work through some of my documen- tary materials. I am also grateful for their good humor and the pleasure of their company. Others in Gaza who helped me with my research include Dr. Assam Sesalem, Wedad Sourani, Majda Taleb, Ahmed Saleem, Wedad Nasser, Yusuf El-Hindi, Abdul Latif Abu Hashim, and Rajab Sarraj. I thank them all for their e√orts, and also thank Wedad for the many excellent meals. I wish them and everyone in Gaza and in Palestine more generally better days ahead. I conducted archival research for this project in a number of places. I am grateful to the archivists and librarians at Dar al-Watha’iq and Dar al-Kutub in Cairo; the Israel State Archives and the Jewish National Library in Jeru- salem; the Library of Congress; the New York Public Library (particularly the Middle East and Jewish Divisions); the National Archives/pro in Lon- don; the American Friends Service Committee Archives in Philadelphia; and the United Nations Archives in New York. Sta√ in the Gaza City o≈ces of the Palestinian Housing Ministry, Awqaf Ministry, Comptroller General’s O≈ce, Pensions and Social Security Administration, ’Omari Mosque li- brary, as well as the Gaza City Municipality, aided my research into Gaza’s local documentary history immensely. The New York Public Library de- serves an additional word of thanks for providing not only resources for my research, but wonderful spaces in which to write. I wrote the dissertation that was the first incarnation of this project in the Wertheim Study and wrote much of this book in the Allen Room. I cannot imagine better condi- tions in which to work. Some of the ideas explored in this book were first published in my ‘‘Everyday Government in Extraordinary Times: Persis- tence and Authority in Gaza’s Civil Service (1917–1967),’’ Comparative Stud- ies in Society and History 47, 4 (2005): 863–91. I was extremely fortunate to receive generous financial support at all stages of this process, support that gave me the opportunity to dedicate myself not only to research but to writing. Dissertation research was funded by the Near and Middle East Program of the Social Science Research Coun- cil (through two grants), the Council of American Overseas Research Cen- ters, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. The writing of the dissertation was made possible by support from the Horace Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan and the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation. I conducted follow-up research in Palestine with a grant from the Palestinian American Research Center. The writing of this book was supported by a Richard Carley Hunt Fellowship from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. I thank all these institutions for their support. My research experience was made eminently more pleasurable by the many wonderful people I knew in Gaza and Ramallah. I treasure my friend- ships with Khalil and Ana Ansara, Christo Bursheh, Marwan Hamad, Lubna Ghaneim, Amelia Peltz, and Nisreen Shyoukhi. Abu ‘Ali Harara and Jamal Harazin helped me in my everyday life in Gaza in innumerable ways, keeping a careful, but never oppressive, eye on my well-being. Bassam Nasser helped me get settled when I first arrived. A special word of thanks goes to Samah Zaroub and her family. I can’t imagine a warmer welcome than I received from this large, wonderful family. I was delighted to share the joys of their life and honored to be included also in their sorrows. My intellectual interest in the Middle East, and my first inkling that I x • Acknowledgments wanted to be an academic, began when I was an undergraduate at Wesleyan University. I especially thank Hope Weissman, my senior thesis advisor, for reading everything and always challenging me to do more. It is certain friends from college—most especially Jen Douglas, Erin Kelly, and Elizabeth Meis- ter—whom I most count on to keep me true to myself. I began my graduate work in the Near Eastern Studies program at New York University. Courses I took there with Lila Abu-Lughod, Samira Haj, and Timothy Mitchell influenced my thinking in important ways. While at nyu, I also began my study of Arabic with Ahmed Ferhadi, who provided an excellent foundation. Anyone who works on the Middle East will find the rest of my path of Arabic language learning (Middlebury, casa) familiar. I am grateful to my teachers in these institutions and also for the many friendships forged in the struggle of learning Arabic. My casa cohort was especially close, and I appreciate the continued friendships of Christina Civantos, Ken Garden, Parastou Hassouri, Kate Kolstad, Nancy Reynolds, Karen Rignall, Jessica Winegar, and the other shilla members Lee Keath and Karim Mostafa. I cannot think of a better intellectual training ground than the University of Michigan’s doctoral program in anthropology and history. Certainly it provided me with exactly what I needed to be able to imagine and embark on this project.